from BARDO

The stars are in our belly; the Milky Way our umbilicus.

Is it a consolation that the stuff of which we’re made

is star-stuff too?


– That wherever you go you can never fully disappear –

dispersal only: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen.


Tree, rain, coal, glow-worm, horse, gnat, rock.


Roselle Angwin

Tuesday 15 November 2011

shed skin

'Poetry can save your life,' said Adrienne Rich. And last night working with the group of poets whom I tutor in Exeter for The Poetry School gave me much nourishment in hard times.

And my friend Simon, he of the beautiful words the other day, sent me this passage from John Burnside (a big favourite poet of mine):


Though each thing dies
into its own becoming,
the shed skin falling away,
still beautiful;

an empty form
but governed by the moon,
like bone,
or thaw.

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